Relations and Anthropological Knowledge

Abstract This chapter continues the discussion of the metaphysics and epistemology of relations from Chapter 3. It introduces and defends a view of relations, Dependentism, that sits between naïve realism and subjectivism. Dependentism makes sense of Sahlins’s views of the value of historical ethnography, illustrated here by the Dark Emu Debate (in contemporary Australian society) and the anthropological controversy between Sahlins and Obeyesekere over Captain Cook’s death in Hawaii. After contrasting Dependentism with Eliminativism and outlining the charms that each view holds, the chapter returns to consider Strathern’s appeal to Locke on relations and the broader relational ethnography it motivates. It concludes by reflecting on some more general themes introduced in Chapter 1 regarding the naturalization and performativity of kin matters, separatism about cultural orders, and pluralism about relations and kin matters.